Another woman accuses a former Utah police chief of sexual misconduct, promising a lawsuit against Provo

Two women who say they were targets of sexual misconduct by then-Provo Police Chief John King intend to sue the city.

Attorneys for the women filed a notice of claim with the city earlier this month, saying Provo failed to supervise King amid complaints of misconduct. They also say the city was negligent in hiring King and did not complete a thorough enough background check — which would have shown that King was forced to resign from a high-profile law enforcement position on the East Coast after accusations of sexual assault.

King resigned as Provo’s top cop in March after being accused of sexually assaulting a volunteer who was conducting research with the Provo Police Department. The chief told investigators that he had sex with her on several occasions — though the woman said the sexual contact was never consensual, according to a Unified Police Department report.

She is one of the women included in the notice of claim, which was filed on Jan. 18. The women’s attorneys released a copy of the notice to The Salt Lake Tribune on Wednesday evening.

The second woman included in the notice of claim worked as a dispatcher for Provo for five years, beginning in 2010. She says King sexually harassed her on multiple occasions — including times when he said he had dreams about her, made comments about her breasts in front of other dispatchers and “conspicuously leered” at her chest in public. King also engaged in “unwanted physical touching,” according to the notice of claim.

When the woman left her job in 2015, she told the city about King’s allegedly inappropriate conduct through a formal complaint, according to the claim, but no corrective action was taken.

Nearly two years would pass before the woman, who worked as a volunteer, was allegedly sexually assaulted by King in January 2017. In the notice of claim, that woman said she felt unable to report King’s unwanted advances and nonconsensual sexual contact because of his “power and authority” as police chief.

Attorneys for the women say Provo officials knew about King’s behavior long before the volunteer reported to authorities that she was sexually assaulted.

“Provo City permitted Chief King to run the department as his personal fiefdom,” attorneys wrote, “mistreating people by harassing them and, at least for one claimant, committing sexual offenses that violated her bodily integrity.”

Attorneys also noted that at least one male employee noticed King’s behavior in the workplace, which included “leering at female dispatchers and attempting to cultivate off-duty relationships with subordinates,” but female employees urged him to not report King’s misconduct, because they feared retribution.

Provo’s spokeswoman and its deputy mayor did not respond to requests for comment Wednesday evening. But on Thursday, Deputy Mayor Isaac Paxman said in an emailed statement that the city is “investigating these claims stemming from the time Chief King served in Provo.”

“And the city is working to ensure that to the extent the allegations may be valid, they will never happen again,” he wrote. “Mayor [Michelle] Kaufusi is emphasizing that Provo city will not tolerate sexual harassment, and that every employee here is entitled to a safe and comfortable environment. “

While the document filed with the city indicates that the women intend to sue, it’s not clear when that lawsuit would be filed. The Tribune does not generally identify victims of sexual assault.

Prosecutors with the Salt Lake County district attorney’s office declined to file charges against King in connection with the most recent allegations of sexual assault.

King became Provo’s police chief in 2013. A year before he was hired in Utah, he was investigated and forced to resign as the Baltimore Police Department’s director of education and training after a female staff member accused him of groping her in a patrol car, according to public records obtained by The Salt Lake Tribune last year.

Prosecutors declined to file charges in that case.

There, a secretary reported that in 2012 she went to lunch with King. On the walk back to King’s police car, he told her he “had an inappropriate dream involving her,” according to a Baltimore County police report. On the return drive, King placed his hand on the woman’s thigh, she said, then began moving it under her dress. She said he then moved her underwear and sexually assaulted her with his fingers, according to the police report. The woman said she pushed away his hand.

In an interview with detectives, King denied assaulting or touching the woman inappropriately.

Provo officials said last summer that they were unaware of the Baltimore case — which led to the Maryland city paying the woman a $24,000 settlement — until a Tribune reporter told them about it in July. Officials said a background check conducted by a recruiting firm found nothing negative on King before he was named chief in late 2013.